Part 43 (1/2)
'You have seen him!' she exclaimed, rising.
'Of course I have!' he answered. 'And you will see him too, one of these days.'
My lady looked at me, frowning. But I shook my head. He was not drunk.
'Where?' she asked, after a pause. 'Where did you see him, Rupert?'
'In the street--where you see other men,' he answered, chuckling again. 'He should not be there, but who is to keep him out? He is too clever. He will get his way in the end, see if he does not!'
'Rupert!' my lady cried in wrathful amazement, 'to hear you, one would suppose you admired him.'
'So I do,' he replied coolly. 'Why not? He has all the wits of the family. He is as cunning as the devil. Take a hint, cousin; put yourself on the right side. He will win in the end!' And the Waldgrave rose restlessly from his chair, and, going to the window, began to whistle.
My lady came swiftly to me, and it grieved me to see the pain and woe in her face.
'Is he mad?' she muttered.
I shook my head.
'Do you think he has really seen him?' she whispered. We both stood with our eyes on him.
'I fear so, my lady,' I said with reluctance.
'But it would cost _him_ his life,' she muttered eagerly, 'if he were found here!'
'He is a bold man,' I answered.
'Ah! so was he--once,' she replied in a peculiar tone, and she pointed stealthily to the unconscious man in the window. 'A month ago he would have taken him by the throat anywhere. What has come to him?'
'G.o.d knows,' I answered reverently. 'Grant only he may do us no harm!'
He turned round at that, humming gaily, and went out, seeming almost unconscious of our presence; and I made as light of the matter to my lady as I could. But Tzerclas in the city, the Waldgrave mad, or at any rate not sane, and last, but not least, the strange light in which the latter chose to regard the former, were circ.u.mstances I could not easily digest. They filled me with uneasy fears and surmises. I began to perambulate the crowd, seeking furtively for a face; and was entirely determined what I would do if I found it. The town was full, as all besieged cities are, of rumours of spies and treachery, and of reported overtures made now to the city behind the back of the army, and now to the army to betray the city. A single word of denunciation, and Tzerclas' life would not be worth three minutes' purchase--a rope and the nearest butcher's hook would end it. My mind was made up to say the word.
I suppose I had been going about in this state of vigilance three days or more, when something, but not the thing I sought, rewarded it. At the time I was on my way back from morning drill. It was a little after eight, and the streets and the people wore an air bright, yet haggard. Night, with its perils, was over; day, with its privations, lay before us. My mind was on the common fortunes, but I suppose my eyes were mechanically doing their work, for on a sudden I saw something at a window, took perhaps half a step, and stopped as if I had been shot.
I had seen Marie's face! Nay, I still saw it, while a man might count two. Then it was gone. And I stood gasping.
I suppose I stood so for half a minute, waiting, with the blood racing from my heart to my head, and every pulse in my body beating. But she did not reappear. The door of the house did not open. Nothing happened.
Yet I had certainly seen her; for I remembered particulars--the expression of her face, the surprise that had leapt into her eyes as they met mine, the opening of the lips in an exclamation.
And still I stood gazing at the window and nothing happened.
At last I came to myself, and I scanned the house. It was a large house of four stories, three gables in width. The upper stories jutted out; the beams on which they rested were finely carved, the gables were finished off with rich, wooden pinnacles. In each story, the lowest excepted, were three long, low windows of the common Nuremberg type, and the whole had a substantial and reputable air.
The window at which I had seen Marie was farthest from the door, on the first floor. To go to the door I had to lose sight of it, and perhaps for that reason I stood the longer. At last I went and knocked, and waited in a fever for some one to come. The street was a thoroughfare. There were a number of people pa.s.sing. I thought that all the town would go by before a dragging foot at last sounded inside, and the great nail-studded door was opened on the chain. A stout, red-faced woman showed herself in the aperture.
'What is it?' she asked.
'You have a girl in this house, named Marie Wort,' I answered breathlessly. 'I saw her a moment ago at the window. I know her, and I wish to speak to her.'